 I quite enjoyed this episode overall. I'll admit I was surprised how much Batman was played up for comedy, but nonetheless it was still an entertaining half-hour.
Atmospherically, this felt a lot different than previous episodes of Guess Who. I've heard that this episode was the series premiere in other countries, which leads me think maybe it was made first. I enjoyed the overall location of Wayne Manor in terms of it feeling sufficiently spooky. Batman was an enjoyable guest star, even if he was a bit zanier this time around. I really enjoyed that they used a different villain than Joker and Penguin this time, especially given the monstrous qualities of the Man-Bat, so I was a bit disappointed that it just turned out to be the Joker again. In terms of the characters, I thought Daphne's relation to Alfred was unnecessary. The gang being related to every single guest star on the planet doesn't seem necessary, and I wish the writers would come up with a different reason for the gang to be teaming up with these guest stars. Scooby's monologue-length comments in this episode really irritated me. I've mentioned it before, but it's so out-of-character for him to be speaking constantly. Maybe this is just me, but it bothered me that Scooby was so upset over his phone breaking, and the fact that he had a phone in the first place. It feels weird to think of Scooby obsessed with his cell phone haha. Overall, this episode was pretty solid though it wasn't my favorite of the series. The reference to the first episode's title was fun, though the extraneous comma in the title card ("What a Night, for a Dark Knight!") is odd. I'm not sure if this is truly the end of season 1, or if Boomerang is just calling it that. I'm not sure if anyone remembers, but with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Cartoon Network claimed that episode 13 was the end of season 1, and episode 14 began season 2. Officially, season 1 of SDMI lasted 26 episodes, so I'm not sure if that's the case here too. Let's update the scoreboard for one last time this season! Star-Studded Scoreboard: 1. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy! (Favorite episode) 2. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad! 3. What a Night, for a Dark Knight! 4. Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus! 5. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson! 6. Revenge of the Swamp Monster! 7. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces! 8. Now You Sia, Now You Don't! 9. Quit Clowning! 10. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 11. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 12. The Fastest Food Fiend! 13. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided (Least favorite episode) Overall, my season-end thoughts are that while I enjoyed the series, I felt the writers were trying a bit too hard sometimes to be nostalgic and it just didn't work for me. I would really like to see them try something new, or explore some new aspect of the franchise rather than just trying to make it a carbon copy of how the original show was. I don't think we'll get it with this series, but I truly hope that they choose to branch off into a different direction in the future, even if just slightly.
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 Check out this exclusive clip from Italian Vanity Fair, for the upcoming Guess Who episode featuring Whoopi Goldberg, "The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!" Note that the clip is fully in Italian. The Nightmare Ghost is also shown in the clip, and looks almost like a Slenderman-type creature. Looks like a great episode!
Thanks to The Cop for letting me know about this! Here's a sneak preview of the season finale of Guess Who, premiering on Boomerang this Thursday! Not sure if it's just me, but the animation looks a bit different on this one, as does the vibe of the episode in general. I will say I'm getting sick of having the gang being related to the guest stars, as it's mentioned in another clip that Batman's butler Alfred Pennyworth is Daphne's uncle. That seems like lazy writing to me.
 Thanks to the episode airing early in Italy, we have the title of the upcoming Whoopi Goldberg episode, which is "The Nightmare Ghost of Psychic U!" Some screenshots were also provided from the episode on an Italian website.     "Quit Clowning!" turned out to be a great episode in some ways, but a very poor one in other ways.
First off, the location and atmosphere of this episode really makes it feel like a classic New Scooby-Doo Movies mystery, more so than any of the previous episodes IMO. Fred, Daphne and Velma acted a ton like they did in the New Scooby-Doo Movies. The villain, Pazzo the Clown, was genuinely super creepy and I like how it looked similar to the Ghost Clown from Where Are You. The references to Thundarr the Barbarian and the Herculoids on the wall of the TV station were really cool as well! I thought it was super cool they had Daphne wear Jeannie's costume as a disguise. Jeannie appeared in "Mystery in Persia" from the original The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which is a pretty obscure reference and I'm impressed they went with it! I didn't enjoy Kenan Thompson though. His jokes were painfully unfunny, and I think I may have lost an IQ point or two listening to his poor attempt at rapping. His charisma and personality were good, but all his jokes were very cringeworthy. I would have enjoyed the episode more if a different celebrity than Kenan was in it, as he really dragged the episode down IMO. No other complaints with the episode really, other than Velma's hearty laughter at the kid getting pied in the face was a bit awkward. It really wasn't funny at all, so I'm not sure what the writers were thinking there. I'm putting this one just above "Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors," but Kenan really dragged this episode down from being any higher than that. I feel bad ranking him above Wanda Sykes, who was actually a good celebrity, and Ricky Gervais, who wasn't as offensive as Kenan, but I'm ranking it here solely due to the rest of the episode being pretty good. "Quit Clowning!" is also a pretty dumb title IMO. Star-Studded Scoreboard: 1. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy! 2. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad! 3. Attack of the Weird Al-osaurus! 4. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson! 5. Revenge of the Swamp Monster! 6. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces! 7. Now You Sia, Now You Don't! 8. Quit Clowning! 9. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 10. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 11. The Fastest Food Fiend! 12. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided Check out this exclusive sneak preview clip for this Thursday's episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, featuring pop singer Sia!
Here's the description of the episode, thanks to CBR. When Daphne gets a call from her good friend singer-songwriter Sia, the gang finds themselves in a mystery involving an evil demon ghost that has taken the shape of Sia as a ghostly doppelganger. And this ghost is getting Sia in hot water by stealing countless gems and jewelry. Can our gang prove her innocence? Can they catch the true thief? Or will the ghostly doppelganger catch them instead?  This was not a great episode, admittedly.
The location and backgrounds were the only thing I liked about the episode. The characters themselves were a bit bland, and I felt like Fred, Daphne and Velma's dialogue was almost interchangeable. None of the jokes were particularly funny, and knowing Jim Gaffigan's humor style from his comedy specials, this felt watered down and unlike his character. The monster was okay, nothing horrible but nothing special either. While I didn't hate this episode, I felt like this episode was just lackluster. It felt rushed, and none of the jokes were particularly funny. There was just nothing notable in this episode. And now it's time for the Star-Studded Scoreboard! Star-Studded Scoreboard: 1. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy! 2. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad! 3. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson! 4. Revenge of the Swamp Monster! 5. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces! 6. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 7. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 8. The Fastest Food Fiend! 9. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided Here's a clip from the Weird Al Yankovic episode to be released tomorrow, entitled "Attack of the Weird Al-losaurus." Thanks to IkeDaKil for sharing this with me!
Here's a sneak preview for tomorrow's episode, entitled "The Fastest Food Fiend." I don't usually like going off of sites like this to announce information, but this is the title TheTVDB lists. Based on Day 24 of the Scooby 50th anniversary countdown calling Jim Gaffigan a "fast food fiend," I'm led to believe that this title is the correct one. Here's the premise for this episode, from the YouTube description of the video:
When Scooby and Shaggy compete in a fast food eating competition sponsored by the Doc Tally restaurant chain, they meet their ultimate challenge eating against none other than comedian Jim Gaffigan! And there’s a horrible monster trying to stop the whole contest from finishing. Can Shaggy, Scooby and our mystery solving gang team up with Jim Gaffigan to save the fast food competition, and themselves?  I've read some other reviews of this episode, and know that quite a few people were annoyed by Urkel's antics in this one. But I for one thought this was a great episode, and I'd even go so far as to say that it was one of my favorites of the series.
I've personally never seen Family Matters (the show Urkel was on), but Urkel was an enjoyable character for me. I thought the silliness he brought to the table in this episode was pretty funny, particularly the flashback to Urkel's court case and the ending of him blowing up the Mystery Machine. The location of the museum itself was pretty cool-looking, and it was perfect contextually given Urkel's habit of breaking things. I was surprised that there was an animation error in which "Coal Mine" was spelled "Coal Minn." I didn't think WB would still make such a silly mistake like that in today's day and age! The villain being a redesign of the Green Ghosts from "A Night of Fright is No Delight" was kind of cool. I can see how one might think that it was just another lazy repurposing of an original villain, but I think it fit well here and the villain being a "Technomancer" made it different enough that it worked. I've had a bit of an issue with Scooby seeming a bit off in past episodes. In this episode, I thought this issue was fixed. All the character dynamics were pretty spot on! Velma seemed a tad bit awkward at points, but it was still pretty good. Overall, while this episode wasn't perfect, I thought it was still very entertaining and a good silly episode to watch when you want to just relax and turn your brain off. For fun, I'm also going to start something new in these reviews. I'm going to give my overall ranking of the episodes from the series so far, and update the list with each review. Here's where my list, which I'm dubbing the Star-Studded Scoreboard (given this is a team-up series), currently stands (from best to worst): Star-Studded Scoreboard: 1. Elementary, My Dear Shaggy! 2. When Urkel-Bots Go Bad! 3. The Cursed Cabinet of Professor Madds Markson! 4. Revenge of the Swamp Monster! 5. The Scooby of a Thousand Faces! 6. Peebles' Pet Shop of Terrible Terrors! 7. Ollie Ollie In-come Free! 8. A Mystery Solving Gang Divided! |
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